


together we will fold (into the mystic)

by elizaham8957



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Fluff, Missing Scene, but it's not really angst, i guess?, it's just very soft, it's not really fluff, post 5b pre 6a, these idiots are in love and in denial, written for stydiaweek 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-18
Updated: 2018-07-18
Packaged: 2019-06-12 07:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15334428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizaham8957/pseuds/elizaham8957
Summary: Lydia really wishes she could say that she still wasn’t used to being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night, but that would be a lie.The truth is that she has become alarmingly accustomed to being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night, and it is the fault of one singular person. That said, she is slightly thankful that her current lack of sleep is due to him rather than actual supernatural catastrophes. And it’s not like she needs to pay a lot of attention in school anyways. They’re doing integration by parts in calculus class, for god’s sake. She taught herself that when she was thirteen.





	together we will fold (into the mystic)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [intothenowhere](https://archiveofourown.org/users/intothenowhere/gifts).



> HEY EVERYONE! Guess who has FINALLY written something new that ISN'T the ice dancing au that is currently at 37k and is consuming my life. It's ME! Happy Stydiaweek, y'all! 
> 
> This was written for day 4: location and is based on a headcanon @leopoldjamesfitz sent me on tumblr. Thank you SO much for giving me your blessing to write this, Tea, because I LOVED writing it. I hope it's just like you imagined! The location for this is the lookout point (does it have a more official name than that??). Make sure you go check out all the new content being created for stydiaweek too, it's AMAZING! Big shoutout to Farah for organizing everything :) 
> 
> Just as a little warning: Stiles at one point says "west coast best coast" in this, but let it be known that I, a native New Englander, do not endorse his opinions, regardless of the four months I lived in LA. 
> 
> I would LOVE to know what you think, and it will hopefully inspire me to write MORE short things. I'm stilesssolo on tumblr and twitter as well. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

Lydia really wishes she could say that she still wasn’t used to being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night, but that would be a lie. 

The truth is that she has become  _ alarmingly  _ accustomed to being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night, and it is the fault of one  _ singular  _ person. That said, she is slightly thankful that her current lack of sleep is due to him rather than  _ actual  _ supernatural catastrophes. And it’s not like she needs to pay a lot of attention in school anyways. They’re doing  _ integration by parts  _ in calculus class, for god’s sake. She taught herself that when she was  _ thirteen. _

She’s so accustomed to being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night that it doesn’t even  _ faze  _ her anymore, which, in all honesty, is probably a bad thing if there is an  _ actual  _ supernatural disaster. Regardless, she can recognize the sound of Stiles’s footsteps in the hallway outside her bedroom now, and she’s always at least partially awake by the time he hesitantly opens her door, whispering her name as she  _ pretends  _ to still be sleeping. 

Lydia is determined to make sure he thinks she is still slightly aggravated by his past-midnight drop-ins, and that she doesn’t wake up at the sound of him in her hallway. She doesn’t need him knowing that she recognizes the sound of his  _ footsteps,  _ for god’s sake. It’s bad enough that she willingly gave him a key to her house. 

(Her excuse for giving him the key was because she didn’t want to die of a heart attack the next time he knocked on her window because her phone was on silent. The real reason may or may not have something to do with the fact that she doesn’t mind spending her nights with Stiles, as she’s relatively sure she’s falling in love with him.

For being the resident detective-slash-conspiracy-theorist of the pack, it truly astounds Lydia how oblivious Stiles can be when faced with the glaring truth that his lifelong crush now has feelings for him.  _ Allison  _ didn’t even have a key to her house, and if she had really wanted someone to be able to come get her in case of “supernatural emergencies,” as she had also said to him when she handed the key over, she would have given it to Scott.) 

Regardless, she  _ does  _ recognize the sound of Stiles’s footsteps— they have a unique, almost  _ flailing  _ sound to them that is very characteristic of the way he spastically moves his gazelle limbs around, and  _ god,  _ she’s falling in love with such a dork. But while sophomore-year-Lydia would probably care to disagree, current-day-Lydia is not sure that’s such a bad thing. She bites back a smile as she hears him coming down her hallway, her heart full and warm as her door swings open slowly. She keeps her eyes closed so that he doesn’t know she’s awake, turning over subtly so that her face is burrowed in her blankets and Stiles can’t call her bluff. 

Lydia’s always excelled at pretending, but lately, that skill seems to melt away around Stiles. 

“Lydia,” he whispers, his voice just barely audible. She can hear his sneakers on the carpet of her room, his hesitant steps drawing closer to her bed. 

“There’s nothing out there, Stiles,” she groans, turning her face into her pillow, squeezing her eyes closed again. He stops moving, falling silent for so long that Lydia has to turn to look at him and make sure he’s still there. 

He is. He’s got a look on his face that’s half contemplative, half shit-eating-grin, and she knows she’s a goner. 

“But there  _ could  _ be.” 

That’s all he has to say before she’s throwing back the covers. 

(She should really start making him work harder for this.) 

“Why am  _ I  _ the one that you consult with for potential supernatural activity?” Lydia asks as she climbs into his car, running her hands up and down over her arms. She’d pulled on her new MIT sweatshirt her mother had bought her when they visited the campus over winter break, right after she’d received her acceptance letter from them, but the night air is still a little chilly, the sky an inky black dotted with bright stars above them. 

“What do you mean?” Stiles asks, shooting her a look as he shoves his keys in the ignition, the Jeep rumbling to life. 

“I mean, Scott has a  _ much  _ better grasp on his supernatural capabilities, and would probably be better at identifying potential threats than I would,” she answers. “So why am  _ I  _ the one getting yanked out of bed at midnight once a week?” 

“Twice a week,” Stiles corrects, and she rolls her eyes at him, though she’s pretty sure her attempts to keep the affection out of her gaze fail miserably. “And… I don’t know. You’re the resident pack genius.” She shrugs, because it’s true. “And we figure stuff out together.” His head turns towards hers, briefly, as he pulls onto the main road. “If anyone’s going to help me solve supernatural mysteries, it’s going to be you, Lydia.” 

She can’t help the way her heart speeds up a little at those words, at the soft look in his eyes, shining in the moonlight. She turns her head so that she doesn’t get sucked up in his gaze, eyes fixed steadfastly on the road ahead. 

“So what are we looking for tonight, then?” she asks, trying to keep her tone casual and light. Stiles shrugs as he flicks on his blinker, turning off the main road and heading away from her neighborhood. 

“I don’t know.  _ Something.  _ I’m not sure what. But it’s out here. I have a  _ feeling.”  _

Lydia can’t help but laugh at that, the sound filling the jeep, echoing out the open windows into the quiet night. “You have a  _ feeling?  _ What, are you the pack psychic now?” 

“Come on, Lydia, we’ve determined you’re not a psychic,” Stiles says, shooting her a look, but there’s a grin playing at his lips. “Are you telling me you  _ don’t  _ have a feeling?” 

_ I have a feeling I’m in love with you,  _ she thinks, but she can’t say that out loud. She just shrugs, glancing over at Stiles in the most non-committal way, because if she tells him that she has absolutely  _ no  _ supernatural inclinations, he might drive her back to her house. And as much as she cherishes sleep, she’s come to like these quiet nights together, the two of them driving down the streets of Beacon Hills into the early hours of the morning, the only sound in the whole world the sounds of their voices bouncing off each other and the humming of the Jeep’s engine. 

They drive for a while in comfortable silence, Stiles searching for something that Lydia thinks both of them know isn’t there. Her heart thumps a little bit at that prospect— maybe this is all just a ploy, because he wants to spend time with her as much as she wants to spend time with him. It had been awkward, before, right after he had broken up with Malia, after he had saved her from Eichen House— there had been this huge  _ thing  _ between them that neither of them really seemed ready to approach, but there’s no way Lydia could ever forget the look of sheer  _ relief  _ in Stiles’s eyes when she woke up in Deaton’s office, her hand clutching onto his like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to this world. That look on his face was one out of a movie, his eyes alight with what Lydia is pretty sure was love. Not in that moment, but looking back on it, later— Lydia wonders if there’s a little more to the reason Malia and Stiles fell apart than what they let on. 

Regardless of the things that passed between them, neither of them have really breached the subject yet, and it was  _ increasingly  _ awkward between them for a while. How exactly do you explain to someone that the whole reason you hung onto  _ life  _ was because they were begging you to open your eyes?

Lydia knows if she does that, she’s laying out all her cards for Stiles to see. And while she’s pretty positive she’s in love with him, she’s not sure she’s really ready for him to know that yet. Something with Stiles wouldn’t be some little fling— she knows that would be  _ it,  _ and that sort of scares the hell out of her. 

But they’re starting to find their way back together again, slowly but surely. That’s another reason why Lydia doesn't  _ particularly  _ mind being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night on the regular— it’s finally starting to feel  _ normal  _ between them again, their friendship falling back in place during long nights spent in the confines of Stiles’s decrepit Jeep. 

“Where are we going?” she asks a few minutes later, because they’re on the complete other side of town, practically at the preserve. Stiles pauses, chewing at his lip contemplatively. 

“Dairy Queen,” he answers, and Lydia raises an eyebrow.

“Do you think there’s a supernatural creature wreaking havoc at Dairy Queen?” 

“No,” Stiles answers, shooting her a look. “Come on. You know if there was a supernatural creature wreaking havoc, they would  _ probably  _ be at either the high school or the hospital, as the most frequented targets for supernatural shenanigans.” He falls silent, and Lydia gives him a pointed look, still wondering why they’re going to a fast food restaurant practically on the town border. 

“Stiles,” she prompts, and he looks over briefly, eyes wide and clear. 

“What?” he asks, oh so innocently, and Lydia wants to slam her head into the dashboard and shove her lips against his all at the same time. 

“Then  _ why  _ are we going to Dairy Queen?” 

“Oh,” Stiles says, like it just occurred to him. “I’m hungry, and I could  _ really  _ go for a milkshake right now.” 

Lydia glances between the clock and Stiles’s face, slowly coming to terms with the fact that she is falling for a  _ disaster  _ of a person. 

“You do know it’s one forty five in the morning, right?” 

“I know. This Dairy Queen is open 24 hours.” 

_ “Not  _ exactly what I meant,” she says, rolling her eyes, but it doesn’t stop Stiles from pulling into the Dairy Queen drive-through a minute later. 

“Hi,” he says into the speaker, sounding  _ way  _ more chipper than the employee taking their order. “Could I have a large order of fries and a chocolate milkshake?” 

“Anything else?” they ask, and Stiles turns towards Lydia, eyebrows raised in an unspoken question. She hesitates for a moment, before her brain finally declares  _ screw it.  _

“I’ll have a vanilla milkshake, please,” she says, and Stiles’s grin is brighter than the moon shining above them. 

They get back onto the road towards the preserve once they have their food, Stiles turning onto a dirt path that Lydia is  _ pretty  _ sure is supposed to only be for the park rangers, but which Stiles navigates with ease. She sips on her milkshake quietly as Stiles drives, the car finally coming to a gentle stop at the end of the dirt road. It takes Lydia a minute to realize where they are, but the twinkling lights are unmistakable— they’re at the lookout point, the lights from all of Beacon Hills shining below the cliff’s edge, like some tiny, make-believe city. 

“Do you think there’s a monster hiding in the woods out here?” Lydia asks as they get out of the car, but Stiles just shakes his head, grabbing his takeout bag instead of his baseball bat. 

“What? No,” he says, slamming the door closed. “I just need somewhere to eat my fries.” 

Stiles hops up on the hood of the Jeep, patting the space next to him and fixing Lydia with a look. She raises an eyebrow at him, not sure he  _ seriously  _ expects her to sit on his car, which looks like it’s about one gentle breeze away from completely falling apart. His expression doesn’t shift, though, so she decides to humor him, climbing up onto the hood in a decidedly less practiced, yet more graceful, manner. He opens his bag of fries as the two of them lean back against the windshield, and she takes the one he’s offering her, washing it down with a sip of her milkshake. 

“Don’t worry,” Stiles says, his tone teasing. “We’ll get back to monster hunting after.” 

Lydia takes another french fry from the bag, eating it in silence as his words wash over her. “Why are you so sure that there’s something out here?” she asks, taking another sip of her milkshake. She hates to say it, but it tastes  _ delicious.  _ Maybe Stiles isn’t completely crazy for wanting food at two in the morning. 

Stiles looks over at her, eyebrows raised, and she shrugs defensively. “I mean, objectively, isn’t it better if there are  _ no  _ supernatural creatures lurking, waiting to attack us and wreak havoc?” she asks. “Why do you  _ want  _ there to be something out here?” 

She doesn’t really mean for the question to be that deep, but Stiles sighs anyways, and she recognizes the weight that her words carry. Still, she doesn’t take them back, eyes trained on the profile of the boy next to her, his features highlighted from the soft glow of the town below. 

“I don’t know,” he says, in a matter that conveys he completely knows, and is trying to figure out how to say it. “I guess because it’s familiar. I mean, we’re used to dealing with supernatural things. Looking for monsters. That’s what we spend half our time doing.” He hesitates, and Lydia can sense that he’s not done yet. He takes another sip of his milkshake, staring out at the town beyond the edge of the cliff contemplatively. 

“With everything changing, it seems like the only constant right now.” 

He turns to look at her with those words, his eyes meeting hers in the moonlight. Her heart speeds up at the vulnerability in his gaze, the emotion behind those whiskey irises. 

“It’s just— senior year is halfway over,” Stiles says, eyes casting downward as he reaches for another french fry. “And it finally feels like everything has  _ settled  _ again, but now we’re all— waiting for college acceptance letters, or figuring out what to do with our  _ futures,  _ and I—” he drifts off, but Lydia doesn’t need for him to finish to understand what he’s trying to say. 

“Everything around us is changing,” Lydia supplies, and he nods, meeting her gaze. She feels that, too. For the first time in her  _ life,  _ she has a whole group of friends who know who she  _ really  _ is, who accept her for  _ her,  _ beauty and brains and supernatural abilities and all. And now the ground below them is shifting, and while objectively, she knows that the pack isn’t going anywhere, she’s scared to lose everything she’s worked so hard to build. She’s scared to leave her  _ family  _ behind, come September. 

“I’ve been talking to my dad,” Stiles says, eyes shifting back to the horizon line. “About pre-FBI programs.” He pauses, finishing off his milkshake. “George Washington has one, and I applied there.” He glances over at Lydia, his eyes desperate for her to say something.

“That makes sense,” she tells him. “You’d be really good at that. Solving mysteries, piecing things together. Figuring it out.” 

“I’m better at it with your help,” he adds, almost automatically, and Lydia wonders if he realizes how those words have pushed her heart into overdrive. 

She watches him absentmindedly pluck the last two french fries from the bag, offering one to her, and decides he probably doesn’t know the effect he has on her. 

“Still. GW’s on the  _ east  _ coast,” he says, pulling a face. “Scott’s gonna be at UC Davis, hopefully. My dad will still be here. I’ve never been that far away from them.” 

Lydia laughs. “You can’t stay here forever, Stiles.” He frowns, eyes fixed on the town before them. 

“Why not? West coast, best coast, right?” 

She rolls her eyes, silence falling between them again. It’s not until a minute later that she finds herself opening her mouth, words tumbling out of it before she can stop to think. It’s so easy, baring her soul to Stiles. That should probably be some sort of indication of how she’s in  _ far  _ too deep here.

“I got into MIT.” 

Stiles’s head whips towards her, eyes wide. She hasn’t told anyone yet; she’s just said how she had gone to visit the campus and had really liked it. It’s sort of her dream school, but she understands where Stiles is coming from— it feels strange to uproot everything she knows and move to the other side of the country with no ties left to home.

“Oh my god, Lydia,” Stiles says, mouth still agape. “That’s incredible!” 

“As a junior,” she adds, more as an afterthought. “I have enough credits to graduate in two years.” 

His jaw drops even  _ more  _ before he snaps it closed, shaking his head. “I don’t know why that surprised me. You’re a literal freakin’ genius.” 

She smiles, leaning her head back against the windshield of the Jeep. “Also on the east coast,” she adds, glancing over at him. He nods. 

“Yeah.  _ Boston.”  _

“Technically Cambridge, but.” 

Stiles pauses, resting his head next to hers, and their shoulders brush, warmth shooting through Lydia’s body from the contact in the brisk night air. “It seems ridiculous that we’re picking out  _ colleges,  _ right?” he asks. “A year ago I was recovering from being possessed by an evil fox spirit. There was a time I seriously thought I wouldn’t make it to this point.” 

“Yeah,” Lydia agrees, because she spent weeks locked up in Eichen, positive death was just around the corner for her. She turns to look at Stiles again, their noses inches apart, and she can see every little fleck of gold in his amber eyes. 

“I’m glad we did, though,” she tells him, and he smiles, softly, just for her. 

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Me too.” 

Lydia loses track of time as they sit there, shoulders pressed together, their milkshakes and fries long finished. They talk about everything and nothing, conversation between them flowing like a stream over worn stones, easy, honest,  _ familiar.  _ Time seems to pass without her even realizing it, because before she knows it, her head is resting on Stiles’s shoulder, his leaning into the top of hers, and the sun is beginning to peek up behind the mountains on the horizon. 

Stiles glances at the time on his phone quick, sensing her question before she even asks it. It’s almost seven in the morning. 

“Is your mom going to be worried?” Stiles asks, and she can feel his voice reverberate through her as he speaks, his cheek still pressed against the crown of her head. 

“No,” Lydia says, blinking slowly. She’s a little sleepy, but she’s  _ far  _ more comfortable curled up with Stiles than she should be right now, considering she’s sitting on the hood of a decrepit Jeep at seven in the morning in January. “She’s with her friends upstate for a girls’ weekend.” Her eyes trace the horizon line, taking in the beautiful shades of pink and gold framing the mountains. “What about your dad?” 

“He’s working the overnight shift,” Stiles says. “He won’t be home until nine.” 

They both sit in silence, watching the sun rise over their sleepy little town. It’s beautiful, the way the light creeps over the mountains, painting the town below them a thousand different shades of oranges and gold, the weak sunshine making all of Beacon Hills look like a village of doll houses. 

“It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” Stiles asks, and Lydia just hums in agreement, her head still resting against his shoulder. 

“Most of the time I feel like I should hate this place,” he continues, voice soft. “That I should be counting down the days until I can get out of here. So much  _ awful  _ shit has happened to us here. But when I think of moving away, going to school in a different part of the country…” he hesitates, the silence heavy between them. “Regardless of everything, it’s still home. And I’m still terrified to leave it all behind.” 

“I know,” Lydia says, because she feels the same way. “We’ll always be connected to this place. I’ll always miss it a little, even when I’m not here.” She pauses, and she can hear Stiles’s heartbeat beneath her ear, steady and rhythmic and constant. “But a home isn’t a place, it’s the people.” She lifts her head from his shoulder, and when his eyes meet hers, bright gold in the morning sunlight, she’s never felt so at ease. 

“That sounds like a quote,” Stiles says, a little smile pulling at his lips. She can’t help but grin back, the morning light washing over them. 

“Stephanie Perkins. Sort of. I modified it a little bit.” She pauses, her eyes still trained on his, and the way he’s framed by the sunrise, pinks and golds and oranges peeking out from behind his profile, makes her heart just  _ hum.  _

“Nothing’s going to break us apart, Stiles,” she assures him. “Me, you, Scott, Malia, Liam. No matter where we are. What coasts we’re on. We’re a pack.” She pauses. “That’s not going to change.” 

“Good,” he says, his eyes shining. “I’d be lost without you.” 

Objectively, she knows he’s talking about the pack, but just from the look in his eyes, pure and private, filled with emotion that’s just for her, she can’t help wondering if he means something else. 

She knows she’d be lost without Stiles as well, so she just smiles back, nodding slightly. Again, she’s struck with that overwhelming feeling of affection, her heart thumping in her chest as his eyes remain fixed on hers, sending a flurry of butterflies through her stomach like she’s some seventh grader with a first crush. 

_ I love you,  _ her mind chants, over and over again, like the one universal truth that’s keeping her tethered to this moment. But she doesn’t tell him— not yet. It’s not the right time, the right moment— but she knows that it doesn’t matter. Lydia can keep this to herself for a little while longer, tell Stiles when the time is right. 

She knows he’s not going anywhere. 


End file.
